Wounds of all sizes and shapes may result from a variety of accidental, surgical, and even self-inflicted insults to the skin and underlying tissues. Many factors are involved in wound healing including nutritional, hormonal and even psychological. Some patients who had undergone punch biopsies of the skin for diagnostic purposes had unusually rapid healing at the biopsy sites. In questioning several of such subjects, I learned that the only factor they had in common was their rather regular use of acetaminophen as an oral analgesic agent (for treatment of recurring headaches).
I prepared a number of topical preparations containing varying concentrations of acetaminophen ranging from 0.05 percent to 10 percent by weight of the carrier (vehicle) and applied these to wounds of various nature where the experimental subject had several such wounds so that the topical vehicle alone could be compared as control. Surprizingly, creams, ointments and solutions containing acetaminophen produced an apparent increase in the rate of healing of such wounds when compared to the carrier alone.